


Betrayals

by morrezela



Series: The Fairy Tale 'Verse [5]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Fairy Tales, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:10:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fairytale AU: Jensen sets out to end the curse – without Jared. The fifth installment of the Sorcerer-Carpenter verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betrayals

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: SADNESS!
> 
> Reading Staircases, Portraits, Journeys and Hopes first is advisable if you don’t want to be confused.
> 
>  
> 
> All mistakes you find are my own.

When Jensen was young, his mother used to tell him a story. She would talk about the myth of “The Tree that Grew in the Pool.” He remembered sneering at the cumbersome and uninspired title, far more entertained with the tales of the court balladeers than some old Veldeer legend that his mother wanted to impart to him.

In his lonely adult years, he regretted not paying more attention to what his mother had to say. He didn’t put his trust in the stories of his Veldeer ancestors any more than he gave stock to those of his human ones. They were stories for a reason, and Jensen was no fool. He was a prince raised to meet out justice and fairness, and one couldn’t do that if one’s head was always flitting about in the clouds believe in things that just weren’t true.

But now that he was following Baron Morgan through the forest to his own certain doom, Jensen wished he could take back the upturned nose of his youth. Myths came about for a reason, and most often that reason was some version of truth or fact. The details changed and became fantastic over time. The power in the tale stronger and faster and more horrible or wonderful than anything could ever truly be, but there was always truth to them.

In the case of the tree and the pool, Jensen had to admit that there was every chance that the legend was actually a diluted form of the truth instead of an exaggeration. The Veldeer claimed that a tree that grew in the middle of a pool had ever changing roots. There was no earth to anchor it. Water was a constant motion. To harness the power of the tree and move it would change the very course of time itself.

The mere thought of it used to send Jensen into educated fits of giggles. Of course there was earth for a tree to grow in. Moreover, there were swamps and bogs in several of his father’s parishes, and none of them had any sort of magical trees in them. And how could a tree cause a shift in time itself? It wasn’t even a magical tree as far as the myth went. It wasn’t made from a fairy seed or even a dwarf’s tuber. The whole concept had seemed ridiculous that Jensen hadn’t spent much time on it.

After the spell that ruined his entire world, Jensen had mourned the fact that he used to vex his mother so. What harm would it have done to listen to her? What would it have cost him?

The answer to his second question was that it had cost him quite a lot. He hadn’t thought of his mother’s legend much during the years that he had lived as an outsider in his own kingdom. It had merely been another source of mourning for him, but his memories of the myth were so vague that he hadn’t given it much consideration.

According to Baron Morgan, that myth was the source of Jensen’s troubles. Rather, it was what enabled those issues to come into being. A tree in a pool was still just a tree unless one had the correct spells and powers to use it. Jensen’s own aunt was the actual source.

The idea had stunned him at first. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, had even called Morgan a liar and a cur. His mother’s family was venerable. They ruled the forests with the knowledge of countless ages of Veldeer. While they hadn’t wished to see his mother leave, they had also seen how she had loved his father and had blessed her union with him.

Proof was hard to deny though, and Baron Morgan had more than enough of it. The dark arts left stains on everything it touched. Only a strong enough light could burn it away, and Morgan wasn’t one for erasing trails. While Jensen had been grieving and ruminating and pining, Morgan had been obsessing over his ruined life. He had cast increasingly dangerous spells until the day that he had finally come upon the thinnest strand of a dark thread that spooled directly back to the very woman who had once been Jensen’s mother’s closest friend as well as sister.

It hurt to know that his own family had betrayed him in such a way. It pained him more to think about what had happened to his mother. Her blood was not ‘diluted’ by human blood. Her only crime had been falling in love with the ‘wrong’ man – a trait that she had passed along to her son.

A pang of regret arced through Jensen’s chest at the thought of Jared. His love for him had always been wrong, even when there were no secrets between them. There would never have been a happy ending for them even if the world hadn’t been changed so viciously by Jensen’s aunt.

It was that thought that Jensen clung to as he followed Morgan through the forests. It had been that knowledge that had allowed him for the first time in his life to turn his magic upon Jared. The steadfast carpenter would have followed Jensen into danger. He would have argued and tried to sway Jensen from his path even though there was no other choice.

The world had been wronged. Jensen’s people had been victimized. Even though they did not know that they had been forcibly altered and changed, Jensen knew. It was his duty as their prince to avenge them, and that included Jared.

In his heart, Jensen knew that he would be grieved when the world righted itself. Jared would cry and mourn loudly at his funeral, and his parents would possibly age in their sorrow. But ruling a kingdom was not about having a castle or commanding troops from afar. That it was Jensen’s own family that had brought such evil to his country only made his obligation to his people greater.

He only hoped that when Jared finally rose from his magical slumber that he would find it in his heart to someday forgive Jensen for marching into a certain death. He only prayed that Jared would never realize that Jensen loved him as he did.


End file.
